This fall I had the opportunity to give a TED talk at TEDxCharlotteville. It was an exciting and humbling experience to get up in front of a thousand or so people and talk about my research trip to Africa for my book Skeletons on the Zahara. As fate would have it, my research trip to Morocco and across the Sahara was scheduled for less than a month after 9-11. As an American, it was a difficult time to be traveling in so remote a place, through Arab lands, with Arab guides. But it was one ripe for learning a lot of lessons and lessons that connected me closer to the shipwrecked subjects I was writing about from two centuries before. Click below to hear my 12-minute talk.

Many thanks to all of you who voted for The Feud to win the Library of Virginia’s People’s Choice Award. I was fortunate enough to win the award for Skeletons on the Zahara in 2005. Ten years later, it was a thrill to be back on the podium to thank all of the good folks at the Library of Virginia, who do so much to promote literary life in the state. I am currently still doing talks about the Hatfield-McCoy feud and working on a new historical adventure tale. More soon!

Posted on Jun 1, 2013 in Blog | Comments Off on Chief Logan State Park

A big time in Logan tonight with Hatfields and McCoys from all around the area. Thanks, Debrina, Frankie, Donna and Keith for making it all happen in a big way at the Chief Logan State Park Museum, which now houses indoors the timbers of Wall Hatfield’s cabin.

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